About Shell

Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. It operates in more than 140 countries and territories, employing approximately 109,000 people.

The challenge

Shell coordinates its worldwide web presence from its headquarters in the Hague. It needed a search solution that would balance central control and local flexibility.

The challenge was:

• To provide a global search framework for Shell's 190 websites and 22 languages, including Arabic, Thai and Chinese.
• To provide complete visual integration of the search interface with Shell's corporate, country and product site templates.
• To support Shell web team's dynamic approach to its web presence by engaging in a continuing programme of development
• To support Shell's web strategy by supplying vital data about what users are looking for on their websites.

The solution

RemoteSearch was deployed on Shell's corporate website in 2001. The success of this deployment led to a rollout in 2002 across the company's entire worldwide presence of 190 sites.

Visual consistency through cutting-edge technology

One of the challenges for external search providers is to ensure that the search templates are kept consistent with the rest of the client's site.

On large, dynamic site networks this can be a problem. If a client changes their site template, or adds new items to their side navigation bar, the search results page needs to know about it.

Magus used state-of-the-art 'screen-scraping' technology to meet this challenge.

Screen scraping enables RemoteSearch to create its search templates on the fly by copying the user's page template and recreating it around the search results page.

This means that RemoteSearch doesn't need regular client updates on site changes. The look and feel will always be seamless, with no visual inconsistencies and no missing or broken links.

In 2003, when Shell launched a global rebrand, RemoteSearch provided the smoothest possible transition, with 190 search pages effortlessly adopting the new look and feel.

Customisation: working the way Shell does

Since initial deployment, RemoteSearch has been extensively customised for Shell. Enhancement requests have been quickly and easily incorporated into the search solution.

Custom messaging allows Shell to route specific keyword searches to certain areas of its web presence, anticipating users' needs and channelling them more efficiently to the information they need. Searches are tracked and click-through rates monitored to ensure relevance.

In addition, RemoteSearch has also given the Shell web team a unique insight into the status of the company's worldwide web presence, through a series of detailed reports compiled during the daily global indexing.

Keeping track of it all: the Asset List Report

A major problem with highly active sites is the inevitable accumulation of 'dead content' – images that are no longer in use, outdated PDFs, and orphaned pages (ones to which no other page links).

RemoteSearch interacts with Shell's CMS (content management system) to identify this content so that it can be removed from the server.

This information is made available to Shell as a user-friendly report, helping the web team maintain a streamlined presence and optimising their use of data storage resources.

Keeping it fresh: the Date Published report

RemoteSearch's custom tagging facility allows Shell to see the total number of live pages on any site and when they were last modified.

At a glance, the web team can check how many pages have been updated in the last three, six or 12 months. This helps them identify content that's past its sell-by date and maintain the highest standards of freshness and relevancy across their global presence.